Dear Manfred

I apologise for my absence in participation in this mailing list for the
discussion of your paper on "Landfill diversion of biodegradables seen and
solved as an administrtaive challenge" - that is chaired by V Jagannathan and
Jorge F Gonzalez. Since both Jagannathan and I have not been able to contact
Gonzalez, I will now step in to co-chair this paper with Jagannathan.

Today (being a weekend), I had another opportunity to read your paper again
and I do this with a different perspective as when I read it when I was in
Stockholm. I am now in Apia, Samoa and have a betetr understanding as I
compare it with the activities at the Apia vegetable and fruit market that I
visit at least once a week.

In Stockholm, the produce reach the supermarket in abundance. Damage and
spoilage of the produce seems to be an accepted part of the life cycle and
this can be seen even in unopen boxes. In some cases they are caused by
mishandling of the produce, e.g. bananas which are thrown or by putting lots
of bananas on top of each other.

In the vegetable and fruit market in Apia, the market is a very large hall
with numerous benches for the sale of local produce. All produce are brought
in by the farmers in small quantities and are displayed neatly on these
benches. I dont see any crop residues in the market - by crop residues I mean
parts of the plants that are not edible. In the supermarket in Stockholm, it
is common to see carrots sold with their leaves eventhough these are not
eaten. It is also getting more common to see tomatoes in bunches. Leaves and
the empty bunches end up directly in the garbage bin of the households.

>The fruit and vegetable stores are businesses who specialize
>in retailing farm produce.......
>During the months of August and September 1998, this trader
>acquired 7.874 tons of produce of which 0.919 ton or 11.67%
>deteriorated  during the handling steps and was discarded

It seems to me that the retail system is an inefficient system due to losses in the produce.

In Losada's paper on the Central Food depot of Mexico City, the market has
3.3 % loss due to deterioration of the produce.

To Manfred and co-authors:
do you have any suggestions to retailers on how to reduce deterioration of their goods ?

regards
jacky